SF AIDS benefit features Jersey Boys, American Idol stars

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com



On YouTube.com

This Sunday, August 2nd (yikes, two days before my birthday!) The San Francisco-based Richmond / Ermet AIDS Foundation (REAF.org) features the 15th annual presentation of "Help Is On The Way: No Business Like Show Business." I've attended this gala over the last four years and I've got to tell ya it’s a load of fun; a mix of a little serious, a lot of energy, and a ton of talent. (The video above is from last year's event, where San Francisco luminaries like Harry Denton were holding court in the pre-show auction lounge, joined by "Austin Powers", "Dean Martin", and others.) Before I explain why you should attend, let me give you some background.

REAF was founded by Barbara Richmond and the late Peggy Ermet in memory of their sons, John Richmond and Doug Ermet, who both lost their lives to AIDS. In 1995, the two women launched a musical AIDS benefit to honor their sons by raising funds for AIDS service organizations. Ken Henderson is the organization's executive director, and together with his partner Joe Seiler have produced the event with the founder Barbara Richmond. I started going to the annual event after some prodding from a good friend of mine who's on the foundation's board of directors and now it's an event drug I can't do without.

What "Help Is On The Way" is known for are appearances by name entertainers who, while they give their time for free, put in knock-you-outta-your-seat performances. Cast performers from the musical "The Jersey Boys" have graced the stage in the past and this year, show star John Lloyd Young comes in. The show has also been the focal point for "American Idol" stars and this year is no exception. Melinda Dolittle, who wowed Idol audiences in season six, and now has a new album called “Coming Back to You", will be joining him as well as the amazing Joely Fisher. Fisher's currently in a new Fox TV show called "Til Death" and is on “Desperate Housewives” as well, in addition to a wealth of credits on TV shows like "Normal, Ohio" and movies like "Inspector Gadget". I had the pleasure of meeting Fisher at last year's event; what an incredibly nice person she was to go with her many accomplishments.

With Fisher, Dolittle, and Lloyd Young comes the legendary actress Tyne Daly from the "Cagney and Lacy" TV series, and "Judging Amy". Carole Cook, who created the role of Maggie Jones in "42nd Street" and was the first to star after Carol Channing in "Hello Dolly" will come back for her 13th show. David Gaines, who played "The Phantom" in "The Phantom of The Opera" 2,000 times (not kidding), is on board, too. He will be joined by Bay Area-performer Maureen McVerry, Shawn Ryan of "America's Got Talent" (who comes back for the third time), the incredible dancers Cate Caplin and Gary Franco, who are coming for their seventh and third time respectively, and singer Welsla Westerfield, who's making her 10th show. Singer Jeanie Tracy comes for her first show as well as comic musicians BaulPointPen. Jon Maher's back and he's performed in 14 of the 15 annual performances of "Help is On The Way". But the one singer you've got to hear is Susan Anton.

This is Anton's fifth show and if you can sit through her performance and not come away breathless, something's wrong with you. I'm serious. Her career spans 30 years (she doesn't look at day over 30) from the play "Hurleyburly" to “The Ben Stiller Show” and includes most recently Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues”.

The show starts with a pre-event Gala Reception with choice offerings from some of San Francisco's best restaurants and Northern California's best wineries and distillers. Steak? It's there. Noodles? Yep. Merlot? Certainly. But the impersonators are a kick, as the video shows, with "Marilyn Monroe" and other stars. Plus, there's a silent auction for those who want to win, say, a vintage guitar used by a certain rocker. The reception starts at 5 PM, with the show itself at 7:30 PM this Sunday, August 2nd at the Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Ave.

"Help Is On The Way" benefits four Bay Area AIDS service agencies including Aguilas, AIDS Legal Referral Panel, PAWS (Pets Are Wonderful Support), and Shanti. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, State Senator Mark Leno, and SF Treasurer Jose Cisneros are the event's honorary co-chairs. Come down, and have a great time, and I've got to be frank, for those single straight bachelors holding out because you think it's not for you, get over it! There are a lot of great looking women there, everyone's nice, and its for a real good cause.

For ticket information visit www.reaf.org or call 415-273-1620

Oakland's marijuana tax - CNNMoney

The new tax is the focus of this video featuring At-Large Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan

Assault in East Oakland on 98th Avenue on YouTube

I saw this at the YouTube channel of EASTOAKLAND106.
who wrote:

2 Thug Azz Niggaz went dumb on a addict i mean dayam only in oakland. But if you sell bad dope and you get caught its bad for the seller. But if you going to sell dope make sure its real or be simple about it DONT MESS WITH IT! LOL Then the white due tried to jack a homeless person in a wheele chair on 99th and E-14 i dont know why he did that. That was a big mistake.

But why they decided to make a video of one of them hitting a man on the street is beyond me, but it shows the other side of Oakland not captured by the blogs, but it should be. Between this and the Oakland Salon Beating, also on YouTube, it's becoming a small habit of posting assaults on the video channel.

Oakland bloggers should pay attention to the Crowley Gates issue

In the wake of the Oscar Grant shooting and the Crowley / Gates racial profiling incident, Oakland bloggers and vloggers should be writing about how we can move beyond that problem. Some of the blogs here are one-note wonders, when they could be valuable voices for social advancement.

President Obama's beer bust with Gates and Crowley: a beer poll

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com



YouTube.com , Yahoo, MySpace, Metacafe, DailyMotion, Blip.tv, StupidVideos, Sclipo and Viddler

What started as a calamity threatening to divide America has seemingly ended in a planned beer bust at the White House, courtesy of President Barack Obama himself. The ill-advised (in my opinion) arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Lewis Gates by Cambridge Police Officer Sgt. James Crowley four days ago caught the attention of the nation, but it was President Obama's comment that the Cambridge Police "acted stupidly" and the rather terrible response by the Cambridge Police Union at its press conference , which created a much-needed national conversation about race, law enforcement, and American culture.

Regardless of where you stand on this issue, there's no doubt that it has been the political talk of the day, even if much of it was disjointed, nasty, and ignorant, especially online. My first video blog, which asserts that Professor Gates was arrested for being an "uppity black man", has drawn over 355 comments on YouTube.com alone within one day, pushing it to over 2,700 views and the 14th most commented on video in the "News and Politics" section of the giant video-sharing site as of this writing. While demographic data is not yet complete, I can say just by combing through all of the comments that the viewers were overwhelmingly male, and about 80 percent white and 20 percent "of color" at first, then on the second day more people identifying themselves as black (who really knows in the comment section, right?) pushing the result to about 60 percent white to 40 percent of color.

Some of the comments were nasty and some were excellent, but the one I liked best of all was not on YouTube, but on Facebook and made by my long-time friend and Oakland, Bret Harte Junior High School classmate Lars Frkyman (who stared with my other long-time Oakland friend from the same school and from Skyine High School, Bill Boyd, in my "Star Trek Review" vlog), who wrote (and I reprint this with his permission):

You keep fighting that good fight against prejudices. As a white guy growing up in Oakland I was beaten several times cause of the color of my skin by a bunch of ignorant angry...fill in the blank.Later in life I've been hassled by white cops because of the length of my hair and my unshaved face. I think it must be human nature to exert power over anything, whether it be pit bulls, gray hounds, the homeless, gays, women, men you name it, humans will abuse it. I guess the sad fact is there's a bully in every crowd. We've come a long way but we sure do got a long way to go eh?
ps Obama's right..stupid cop! No apology necessarry
Lars

Lars is right. The Crowley / Gates incident was one of institutional racism on the part of Crowley, versus classism on the part of Gates. Crowley keeps saying "I went by the book" which opens the door to the kind of racial profiling African Americans and others are just plain tired of. "Going by the book" just means that Crowley didn't use his own judgment in the matter, plus he let his ego get in the way when he realized this "black man" was yelling at him and not following his orders. Gates' was angry that Crowley entered his house (without a search warrant) and from his point of view did not show him his police ID or look at the professor's identification, and so was going to "inform Crowley of who he was".

Two yaks ramming heads. Only one of the yaks, Gates, represented a group of people who'd had it. Racial profiling has been the bane of the African American existence for too long, and Obama's comment that the "Cambridge Police acted stupidly", even if his words may have been poorly selected, was right on and struck a cord from sea to shining sea.  For Crowley to behave with the proper judgment in this case, many agree, would have been to make no arrest at all. But some officers are hard-wired to feel (not think) they have to make an arrest if the person's black, at least that's the perception of most African American (especially in the wake of the Oscar Grant shooting) and many whites too, like this commenter on my first YouTube video on this issue:

ALL of you are blaming everyone but whos responsible. First the media was the first person to play the race card to be exact it was CNN. Why because it will sell they know it why dont you? I am irish and white my family came to america in the 1910's we where hated by EVERYONE but my family overcame and if you want to blame someone blame the press they are the ones who plaster black men on the news every damn day and now you wonder why people are scared of blacks. All of us need to put this down.

Or just have a good, ice-cold beer or two! In fact, that's what President Obama, Sgt. Crowley, and Professor Gates plan to do at The White House. According to Obama, it was Crowley's idea, and Gates accepted the invitation. In a statement provided to "The Root" , a website covering news from a black perspective where Gates is editor-in-chief, he wrote:

"..if we can all use this to diminish racial profiling and to enhance fairness and equity in the criminal justice system for poor people and for people of color...After all, I first proposed that Sgt. Crowley and I meet as early as last Monday. If my experience leads to the lessening of the occurrence of racial profiling, then I would find that enormously gratifying. Because, in the end, this is not about me at all; it is about the creation of a society in which 'equal justice before law' is a lived reality."

Ok, fine, now what beer should they drink?

The Beer Poll

Having gotten past the arguments, we can watch Obama, Gates, and Crowley have a beer, but what brand? You can pick the beer in my poll below:

create fun quizzes & tests on pollsb.com

As of this writing, Budweiser has the lead over Pabst Blue Ribbon by 12.5 percent. No one picked Miller, while my favorite, Japan's Sapporo beer is even with Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, and 12.5 percent picked "Other" beers. In the interest of real diversity, pick Sapporo! But that written, the day Obama, Gates, and Crowley meet for a beer should be called "National Raise a Glass for Diversity Day."

Seriously.

I think it should be a day that people of different stripes deliberately get together to just get along, get to know each other, and have fun. Considering how far America's come in being a true melting pot, it's not hard to do at all.  But the rule should be to have a beer with someone who's of another background and race from your own.  That would be huge!